This Is What the World’s Bloodiest War Looks Like #5

A photo a day from the Syrian civil war

This Is What the World’s Bloodiest War Looks Like #5 A photo a day from the Syrian civil war Thirty months. More than 100,000...

This Is What the World’s Bloodiest War Looks Like #5

A photo a day from the Syrian civil war

Thirty months. More than 100,000 dead. Millions displaced. The Syrian civil war is by far the bloodiest war in all the world today—and it could only get worse as the political, economic, humanitarian and sectarian crises it has spawned spill into neighboring countries.

Fighting came early to Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, 100 miles north of Damascus. During protests in March 2011, security forces fired on demonstrators, killing dozens. Rebels took up arms and established checkpoints in sympathetic neighborhoods. The Syrian army and its ally Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, have launched several offensives over the years meant to retake the city.

Thomas Hammond photo

Seventeen-year-old Ali Hassan made the mistake of hanging out with friends near a rebel checkpoint in Baba Amr. Suspecting he was a rebel fighter—something Hassan denies—the army arrested him in March. For four months he was passed between various regime intelligence agencies. He was tortured until he falsely confessed to being a fighter: electrocuted, cigarettes extinguished on his skin.